Just as the right stole a march on the left by funding “Think Tanks” such as the Heritage Foundation and “Societies” such as the Federalist Society, which has brought us the Catholic Supreme Court, they are now focusing on the thinking of American youth, attacking secular public schools and promoting the use of state and federal tax dollars to support religious schools, charter schools and home schooling. The First Amendment to the Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” and until recently that Amendment has been interpreted as insisting on a separation of church and state. The source and significance of that Doctrine of the Separation of Church Stage can be traced back to both secular and religious, i.e., Plato’s Euthyphro: justice has two parts, that which “has to do with the service to the gods, the remainder is the part of justice that has to do with the service to mankind; and Jesus’s admonition: 400 years later: ”Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”,
What Americans need to know now is that the religion that shapes Project 2025 is that practiced by the evangelical fundamentalists, who are a minority. Eighty-one percent of Americans say the law should not allow companies or other institutions to use religious beliefs to decide whether to offer a service to some people and not others. (ACLU)
The Heritage’s Project 2025 which is now being implemented advocates doing away with the Department of Education, expanding school vouchers, telling teachers what to teach and not to teach and punishing them for not complying, To learn more about this assault and to do something about it, support your local public schools and the National Education Association:
From the National Education Associations web-site:
In 2022-23 more states passed or expanded school voucher laws than any previous year. But the evidence is indisputable: vouchers are being used by families with children already in private school to subsidize their tuition, and their skyrocketing costs are diverting funding from public schools—to the detriment of the 90 percent of our students who attend public school. National Education Association. National Education Association
In calling for a federal voucher law, Project 2025 promises to “model” the ESA voucher program that took hold in Arizona. This would be catastrophic. Arizona’s is one the largest voucher programs in the nation and one of the most unaccountable. Far from serving lower income families, Arizona’s vouchers benefit predominantly private school families, siphon valuable funds from public schools, and have destabilized the state’s budget.
The implications for students and public schools and the communities that rely on them are disastrous. And Arizona, unfortunately, is Exhibit A.” said Jessica Levin, litigation director at the Education Law Center.
Project 2025 would also weaken regulations against charter schools, which take away funding from traditional public schools, that often have little accountability to taxpayers or parents.
Attacking Educator Voice
Labeling the National Education Association (NEA) a “radical special interest group,” Project 2025 calls on Congress to revoke NEA’s congressional charter and threatens educators’ ability to come together and work in union to advocate for their students and their profession.
NEA is a powerful voice for public schools across the country, mobilizing its members for increased education funding, higher pay for educators, and against school privatization schemes. Project 2025 sees the collective voice of educators as a major obstacle to implementing their extremist agenda at the state and local level, which is why it seeks to bulldoze their collective bargaining power – indeed, dismantle all workers’ right to organize via unions–and the ability to advocate for themselves and their students.
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